This provides for the preparation of an annual report of the Minister's proceedings during each financial year. The report will be laid before both Houses of the Oireachtas.
SECTION 7.
Question proposed: " That section 7 stand part of the Bill."
It is quite a common thing for such reports to come a year late when they have lost all relevancy to a changing situation.
I wish we could get all reports out on 1st January.
Is it any use asking for an assurance that these reports will be available while they have some releveance?
I will welcome the day when we can get them on 2nd January of the following year. However, the point made by Deputy Brennan could be dealt with more appropriately during the debate on the Estimate.
Could we not insert something to make it mandatory to have such reports produced within, say, nine months of the periods with which they deal?
I do not think I could do that. Human nature being what it is, we might then get a report that would not be as full as we should like it to be.
I would not like to stir up dissention in the Cabinet, but the Minister for Local Government has accepted such an amendment. I suggest that the Minister should accept a similar amendment in relation to this Bill, proposing a mandatory time.
I agree it is highly desirable that reports should be brought in while they are relevant and not when they are meaningless. However, I do not think it would be reasonable or conducive to getting full report to have a mandatory date.
This is different. It is a report that many people will want to see, apart from Deputies.
This is where the urgency comes in. We have many examples where semi-State bodies are concerned of reports coming a year late and when we are discussing the Estimates to which they are relevant the reports themselves have become irrelevant and meaningless.
I am more than conscious of the necessity for having such reports made available in time.
I want to talk briefly about the type of report. Section 7 proposes that the Minister shall, as regards each financial year, prepare a report of his proceedings during that year and he shall cause the report to be laid before both Houses of the Oireachtas. There are various sorts of reports which the Minister could make. What precisely has he in mind? Would it be a general state of the nation report which forestry organisations and others could study and have access to, or would it be very much a stereotyped departmental document?
The report I have in mind would be a live comprehensive report that would deal with the activities of the Minister and the Department in the operation of the Act during the previous year. The points the Deputies have been making are, with the greatest respect, appropriate for the debate on the Estimate. We have here provision for bringing in a report each year. It will be obligatory on the Minister to do so. If he brings in an unsatisfactory report he can be brought to book in the Dáil where he is answerable. For instance, his Estimate can be referred back.
It is obligatory on the Minister to make a report and it is no great departure in procedure to have the report within a certain period. Would the Minister accept an amendment making it mandatory to have the report issued within 12 months?
I would prefer not to have it written in black and white in the section. The Minister is answerable to the House.
We know very well that quite frequently the Estimate for the Department of Lands has not been taken at all. It is quite possible from now on that many Estimates will not be taken. Therefore, what the Minister has said is no protection. The Minister for Local Government has accepted a mandatory provision and I think it would be reasonable to insert here a provision that the Minister shall make the report within 12 months following the end of the year concerned.
I repeat that within my Department I have staff to ensure that reports will be speeded up. That will continue to be my policy. Candidly, if we were to write into this section that a report must be brought in, shall we say, on 1st June following the year to which it referred, we might easily have a situation where for one cause or another—there might be delays in getting it to the printer and other difficulties—an unsatisfactory report would be presented.
That is a trivial argument.
The Minister will appreciate that his attitude is a recipe for continuing tardiness in the presentation of reports. Surely it is not unreasonable to ask that a report in respect of one year would be produced within 12 months of the termination of that year.
Such a report should certainly be produced within that time and if it is not the Minister concerned would be answerable either during a debate or by way of parliamentary question.
We have had many examples of these delays in the production of reports. There is not much point in referring to something that has happened two years before. We are not being too severe in our demands here for a statutory period. Surely if the report is to be produced at all we can have it within 12 months. I should also like the Minister to provide some means whereby when the report is laid before both Houses it would be open for debate in the same way as statutory regulations which require 21 days within which an annulment motion can be discussed.
As the Deputy knows, there is procedure and machinery available to Parliament, by way of motion, that the Dáil takes note of the report of the Minister for Lands on the Wildlife Bill. That is a recognised procedure that has been there for many years and was availed of in the Seanad.
Used by the Seanad but——
The Minister will accept that what he is doing here, in refusing to accept some qualification in the matter as to when it will be produced, is accepting a situation where the information provided inevitably must be, to a large degree, irrelevant. Certainly, if it is a year-and-a-half or two years late it will not generate the interest, will not encourage all the people in the country whose assistance we hope to get in respect of the enforcement of the provisions of this Bill. Very few people are interested in a historical statement of something that occurred two years beforehand. The whole purpose of the report would be to generate interest and be beneficial to the general provisions of the Bill.
We have been working quite harmoniously now since 4 o'clock. I would ask that the Minister would agree to a provision which, understandably, would be a departure from that which has been the practice in respect of reports to date, that he would accept some provision which would guarantee that a report would be made available at a time when it would be most useful.
If I thought for one moment that such a provision would ensure that a full and comprehensive report were brought in, I would be in favour of it; I would not be against it. But I am very conscious of the fact that, when there are statutory time limits—whether they are under the malicious injuries code, the workmen's compensation code or some Act ensuring that procedures are instituted within a certain time—they must be complied with. We will say, under the malicious injuries code, when the old seven days' preliminary notice used to be required, there was a preliminary notice rushed in which meant nothing.
That is a different thing altogether.
But, in this position here—where there is a statutory time limit—it will be complied with. But it might not be complied with in such a way as to bring forth a full comprehensive, informative document. I put that to the Committee in all sincerity. I am saying that Oireachtas Éireann has, at its disposal, sufficient machinery to ensure that the Minister brings in his report in time, and to reprimand him publicly and expose him publicly if he comes along with a report a couple of years later.
It is fair to say that, in relation to the Department that will be dealing with this reporting, the record has been fairly good on their reporting time; it has been up to date on the parklands and forests. At least that has been my experience and I have been in the House only three years—they have been fairly rapid, well within the 12 months.
I cannot quite agree with the analogy the Minister has drawn regarding the provision of reports on matters of a purely statistical nature, that do not in any way compare with the report which would involve the working of this legislation dealing with the environment and matters in relation to the preservation of wildlife which we would have to debate and know. When the Minister comes into the House with his Estimate he has to be brief. I strongly oppose this.
Is the Deputy just referring to the statistical aspects of the thing because I envisage that this report—the Minister may be able to enlarge on this—will deal with the actual workings and research work done by experts?
I do not want to interrupt but I put it to the Committee that very many Acts went through Dáil Éireann with no provision at all for reporting to the House. For instance, there was the Road Traffic Act. I could reel off dozens of Acts which make no provision for reporting. But here we understand the necessity for a report and we are putting in a provision for it. Also we will have, under this Bill, counsel provided for in section 13 which obviously will encourage the Minister to get his report brought before the Dáil and publicised without delay. I am not being unhelpful on this.
Would this report envisage the inclusion of research work done by this section of the Minister's Department?
It would be comprehensive. I would visualise a comprehensive report showing the activities of the Forestry and Wildlife Section of my Department, under the Act, during the previous 12 months.
Will it cover things like rare species and the position they are in?
Yes, knowledge that we acquire, studies being made and so on.
This would require obtaining information from, say, Galway University that might be working on projects and so on.
No, it would deal only with what we had done during the year.
A factual record?
A factual record.
What would the actual year be? Would it be the financial year from January to December?
Exactly.
Therefore, it would have to be some time afterwards that its preparation would commence, followed by the printing and subject to any difficulties of printing?
Will the Minister be issuing a directive on the wishes of this Committee that that report be completed as soon as possible?
I will fully bear it in mind. I do not want to introduce other red herrings but one could visualise a situation in which there would be a printers' strike, when one could not get the thing published. There are various reasons. I emphasise to the Committee that I accept fully, and without reservation, the principle behind the argument put forward. As long as I am Minister for Lands that would be my desire. I am not merely saying that now because I have tried to speed up the Land Commission report from my Department since I became Minister.
Question proposed: " That section 7 stand part of the Bill."
Agreed.
No, we do not agree.
So we do not have any report then; we delete this section?
No, we would prefer to delete the section than to——
There is no amendment to it.
We oppose the section in the knowledge that the Minister would have to replace it by a section making provision.
There is no amendment before the Committee.
Do Deputies want to have a division on the section?
Deputies
Yes.
Very well.
Clerk of Committee
Deputy Brennan?
I am against it.
I take it there is provision for calling—might I ask what is the position?
That we divide on the matter now.
Have we Dáil procedure for calling forth?
No, no procedure; the question is just put. The division is taken by the Clerk under Standing Order No. 70 which reads:
Divisions shall be taken by the Clerk to the Committee calling the names of the members. In the event of there being an equality of votes the question shall be decided in the negative.
I suggest, Sir, that the section as it stands is sufficient, that if the section is deleted now——
Mr. Chairman, this started earlier.
Mr. Chairman; you started the division in accordance with the Standing Orders applying to Committees. If there is anybody absent, that is his or her responsibility.
The Clerk started taking——
Mr. Chairman, the Clerk had started taking the division and it should be taken.
I asked the question first of all—the Minister is entitled to make explanation—I asked Deputies if they wanted a division.
Oh, we will believe it.
(Interruptions.)
I am quite prepared; I am still here now; I know it is 6 o'clock and the clock is a bit fast——
The Clerk started taking the division and the Minister interrupted.
If the Minister wants to talk it out that is a different exercise but we are not going to fall for that yarn.
We are not children.
That is a poor display.
Standing Orders—give or take them—I suggest, Mr. Chairman, that you proceed with the procedure of the Committee as set up and that is that you proceed with the vote.
(Interruptions.)
It is after 6 o'clock.
(Interruptions.)
You made sure it was after 6 o' clock.
(Interruptions.)
I am afraid, Mr. Chairman, you will not get a quorum next time.
You will get that Bill through when we feel like it.
Mr. Chairman, you either proceed with the business of this Committee, as has been instructed by the House, or you do not. Let that be quite clear. Your Clerk had initiated the court, as was in accordance with the requirements. If the Minister then elects to talk it out, we are not going to fall for that.
I asked what was the procedure.
I was asked, on a point of order—which I had to answer—what was the procedure. I read the Order. I was first of all informed it was standing Order No. 70. I looked and found it was No. 71. I read it——
You will not find me at the next meeting.
——and, by the time I was finished, it was after 6 o'clock. I have no power to deal with——
(Interruptions.)
Mr. Chairman, I am sorry to have to say it but you have contrived to prevent the division being taken when it should have been taken.
I suggest that we fix the next meeting.
The Minister will not fix it with me.
(Interruptions.)
Deputies Brennan, Haughey and Tunney then left the meeting.
The next sitting? I cannot do it tomorrow morning because I am otherwise involved then.
When would suit you, Sir?
We have the Misuse of Drugs Committee tomorrow at 4 o'clock; I am involved in the morning, so tomorrow seems to be out.
What day would suit you, Sir?
Next week perhaps. There is a meeting of the Committee on Procedure and Privileges sitting on Thursday morning, and Deputies do not like Thursday afternoon.
Any day this week would suit me.
Thursday perhaps; we will all be here because there will be a full sitting on Thursday on the Finance Bill.
Yes, some of us will be here.
A lot of us are on both committees, the Misuse of Drugs and this one; that is the problem.
There is no committee sitting on Thursday afternoon but the House will be sitting on the Finance Bill.
Thursday at 4 o'clock?
4 p.m. on Thursday.
The Committee adjourned at 6.05 p.m. until Thursday, 13th May, 1976 at 4 p.m.